Where does meaning come from?

MagsJ

First of all, let me thank you for some of my recent inspiration to write - your concise thoughts have led to a cogitation explosion. Second of all, I want to give you a heads up that I have not paid the usual attention that I do to sentence structure - reason being - I just wanted to let the thoughts flow and see what came out.

I agree . . . everybody has their own agenda . . .
I guess years ago, our own agenda might have been less than that of the local community’s agenda - just a thought. Having not lived that far back, I can not really say but I can say this - spending my high school years in a small community where everybody knew each other, felt very wholesome - what I mean by this, might have little to do with meaning though. I can say that throughout my adult life, there have been times where my high school years felt more meaningful than any arbitrary moment thereafter. Right now I am considering whether nostalgia plays a small part in providing meaning to us.

Namely… self-survival.
Regarding self-survival; I imagine we are talking somewhat above physical survival. Meaning helps to reassure oneself in a confusing world that their own life means something. I wonder what living in a smaller tribe would have been like, whether the residents of that tribe found more meaning in life than we do. The larger the settlement(village, town, city etc.) the less meaningful one feels.

Looking back . . .
When we get to a ripe old age, I can imagine whatever meaning we have gained from life to be high on the list of best company. I have spent many an hour listening to an elderly person speaking of old times - I have received much enjoyment from these precious moments. I ponder whether the meaning might be so important to us that if in the event, we consider that we might not have gotten everything out of life that we were working to achieve, then meaning kicks in to save us from any disappointment we may feel.

Self-serving process . . .
Of course it is difficult for me to ignore what you wrote regarding an input and output connected to a self-serving process, that becomes interrupted - first because I like processes - secondly because I wonder whether the process is actually ever interrupted or whether it is only interrupted on a conscious level. I must say however it certainly feels like meaning is put on hold at times and our desire to get it back increases through these periods.

When we leave it for too long . . .
In this post I would like to add to my comment from before, about hope, that despite the things that interrupt our individual searching to find meaning that we are able to hold onto any precious meaning gained :: I will add that if left for too long, the maintenance of self-survival(related to personal meaning), can lead to one truly losing oneself in a ocean of meaninglessness - that is my observation of people - they may indeed have meaning but it seems it does not glow from them like some people - I can just see meaning in some peoples eyes.

Pretty words and my rambling . . .
:smiley: …and pretty words from you in return, ED :slight_smile: Thank you MagsJ, I think your words are better - not only are your words pretty but they are more succinct than my own. I could not really help myself this time around but to keep typing - apologies if I became too long winded for your liking. :blush:

Indeed . . . and sad but true. Meaning comes at a price - we invest many years and dollars to make our lives meaningful and before you know it, the world has changed and what we have achieved becomes meaningless, or less impressive to those around us and perhaps even ourselves. Your comment also makes me think about tradition - in that it is quite possible that tradition while may not providing a full meaning to some, is at least a basic asset to building ones own meaning off of. I can assure you that I will be putting more thought into global social-unrest.
[size=85]I will call this section: When meaning seems lost . . .[/size]

I have really gained from this interaction. Thank you. I can now consider how meaning drives our personality. How our personality can be watered down or diluted among the social noise of our respective environments - how it is that we become shells of people rather than humanely wholesome. How the “meaning process” is always running in the background and needs to be brought to the foreground periodically for reflection to maintain our conscious awareness of it - how this periodic reflection allows our personal meaning to shine through our personality. Finally, meaning I believe, is strongly attached to communication - our desire to talk/communicate and ask questions.

It should be interesting where all of this takes us . . .

encode_decode

Thank you for your affirmations towards me.

I do not mind but did you ask them? :wink:

Yes, we are ALL ongoing processes though at times it may appear to us that we are not. We get an epiphany out of the blue sometimes but we forget the unconscious process that might have taken place to bring it to fruition. We think that an insight just landed within without any ongoing process beforehand and up to that point.

Best not to speak of offence until one has confirmed that they were offended.

All of the below was a little difficult for me to follow as is so I just responded to your words in color…

What James had said was… Discover the objective truth of what you are and from there the meaning of your life will spring.

I cannot agree with this. It takes a lot more than logic ~ but yes, that too ~ to discover who we are and it is not always a smooth path or a linear one. It also takes great emotional upheaval at times like Jacob fighting with his angel.

So what are you actually saying here, encode_decode? As you see, I just about repeated the words which I gave to James. What I take from that is that one has to be ready willing and able to let’s say seek out the holy grail which is ourselves. Is THAT what you were saying?

Again, I disagree with that. Human beings are not mathematical equations. We can use logic for math equas. but not for ourselves.
We are flesh and blood, with our own individual human psychology. We cannot Know Ourselves only through the use of logic. We may be able to solve some of our inner problems through honesty and good cognitive thinking but much more than that is required.
You seem to be simplifying the human equation with logic. Learning about who we are can be quite the messy affair.

If someone is reading a book and the title of the next chapter is the above ~ then what happens, encode_decode? Does the author leave a lot of empty space for ourselves to fill out and then go on to the next chapter? As is, that phrase means nothing.

Logic is very important yes, but you seem to be making a God out of it.

lol The old standby Logic.

There are absolutely no shortcuts to our becoming and to our [incidentally] never quite getting there. We are an unending process and as such, as we change [if we can see the changes] there is still more to discover about ourselves.

Again, James wrote:
“Discover the objective truth of what you are and from there the meaning of your life will spring.”

Unless James had something absolutely and in particular in mind, like a particular purpose/life mission or personal destiny, not withstanding the objective truth of…, well, I do not know then.
Also, within the objective truth is also subjective truth. We are dealing with human beings here, not rock formation.
as is,

Can one actually have a feeling of zero thoughts? I may be wrong here but if there is STILL the feeling, perhaps the thoughts are there too. I may have not expressed that well.

How are You using the word toy?

If I remember this is about the zen garden. I doubt very much if a perfect scene would escape me. Maybe I do not understand your meaning of escape.

My zen garden is brought about through my emotions and my mind and their inter-connectedness with the outside world or environment surrounding me, nature, the elements, the sky, the stars, et cetera.

What does a healthy skepticism have to do with the above - though i strive to keep my skepticism both healthy and real and not lean too far either way.

Or you might have just offered your hand and asked “May I have this dance?” lol

I’m not sure how the latter part of that follows.

Some memories do play tricks on us. Do they live in truth or do they live in illusion allowing us the mistaken cocoon of security?

When I asked that question, that was just my steady stream of consciousness. lol

No judgment there - just curious.

Experience their selves or the company?

I once had a dream of being in a rowboat on a river surrounded by really dirty water and a lot of snakes. Could have actually been a healing dream though one would question that.
It’s beautiful imagery the koi. But as a moment of contemplation, what exactly is the movement of the koi? Are they like your avatar or in just what direction are they going and what are they doing?
Or would you have them continue to go in circles following one another?

Moonbeams leaving their wake on the river…

Arcturus Descending

If any of my post came across as an affirmation then I am pleased for that. I encourage everybody to think for themselves above all of that. I did not ask anyone whether it was OK to jump in the middle of anything hence why I was offering hope. I like my manners and I think it would be best for me to keep them especially where I live. I will remember each interaction I have on this forum for the future and adjust my behavior appropriately unless there appears to be too many rules of engagement in which case I will back off. Communication is not a very difficult thing in my opinion. In those events where the rules of engagement show themselves in a cost outweighs the benefit scenario then there is no reason to push forward. Meaning is lost when there is no gain for either party.

The answers I provided were without the substance of the original author - it is a great example of where meaning is not to be found. I do however hold logic in high esteem. I hold people in higher esteem. Everybody has their own agenda and everyone has a different path in life. How we find meaning is very much up to each individual. I do not treat logic as a god. We are dealing with human beings, however I personally am also dealing with nature. I am glad you are able to perceive perfect scenes. I am unwilling to go into the zero versus infinity scenario as I do not feel it would benefit either of us. Your version of the Zen Garden sounds lovely. I am also thinking that metaphor was not the best choice of response toward you. It seems to have confused to situation even more than it was worth.

As for the rest - it is probably better for me to refrain from responding as there seems to be a lot of meaning getting lost into the abyss.

I am quite happy for each person to see things the way they want to - I have no real interest in the many, many futile philosophies of the world. This forum is a great place to exchange ideas. It seems some people like to push their ideas on others - if that is what it seems like I have done to you, then I sincerely apologize for that - it was not my intention. I never came to ILP to preach to anybody nor be preached to. My only interest is for meaningful exchanges.

Regarding debates - if there is a debate to be had that is worth my while then I will happily get into it. I have not been presented with many worthwhile debates so I refrain for the most part from participating in that sort of thing. I am lucky however that I do have two debates happening right now and a whole bunch of meaningful exchanges on top. I always keep in mind that philosophy is not just about ethics.

Peace,

Aaron.

:wink:

gib

I prefer to stay away from conversations referring to nihilists, so I wont go there for the time being. You do not appear to be a nihilist - correct me if I am wrong - if I am wrong about this then I would be happy to include nihilistic themes in our interaction.

Hmm, it could be interpreted that way. The brain works with patterns, so even without language it is able to derive meaning. I guess this is something that one is entitled to not agree with but it is something that I have found many examples of correlation that show meaning is not necessarily related to language. Communication and information are definitely key players in meaning but language is not a mandatory component.

This sounds interesting . . . what is the experience of the plant like? I think you are onto something here. This gives rise to much thought.

I know it was not meant as an insult. I agree with the rest of what you say here. I for one do appreciate the diversity - we are on the same wavelength there.

This appears to be very similar to many lines of thought that I follow. I would be very interested in knowing more and what might stem from this.

This is really awesome gib - I wonder if primitive man and babies have much in common when it comes to the way they approach objects - I never really considered primitive man often, what inspired you to take this approach?

I have put quite a lot of thought into what you have posted - I do have some things to add but for now I am more interested in what you have to say on different things - I find your line of thought follows a divergent and semi parallel path to my own. It seems that we are independently discovering different things and at times converging on very similar items.

:-k

Dan~

Thank you for your post. :smiley:

I do indeed see what you mean Dan~. The way you are looking at it, is a way that I am a little unaccustomed to. My approach is more mathematical in nature involving sums and differences. There is similarity however in the following things you have written: the core, temporary and changing aspects, old aspects, bi-product and memes. I think there is synergy created through any related thought as well as any unrelated thought.

Biologically speaking, I merely equate things to a living computer - which your post is hinting at.

:smiley:

encode_decode wrote:

Your kind words to me were definitely an affirmation.

.

I am not sure what brought on this statement. I will say here though that having been here for a while now, you must have observed that most in here actually do that. That is not to say that it is always done with the greatest cognition. I may be speaking of myself here. :evilfun:

I do that and I observe that many others will do that. I see nothing right or wrong in it.
If we know of a particular person who ONLY prefers the person to whom they are posting to be the only one to respond – well, then, I can’t really say if that is right or wrong. I can’t even know if that would be, in actuality, disrespect to do. What some disrespect is clearly not disrespect. It is a question of perspective. But to me it would be no big thing. I would simply not respond. I am in some ways a nihilist. lol

We all choose for ourselves how we ought to live.

That would seem to be reasonable and appropriate from my point of view. That doesn’t mean that others will adhere to your mode of behavior. But then again, you will adjust that…

:-k That would depend on what you actually mean by that. Communication can be very difficult and at other times it may not be. It might depend on whom we are communicating with and our individual styles of language.

But one might give up just at the moment when meaning might come in. Did that make sense to you?

Who is the original author? As for the second part, I don’t necessarily agree with you there.
Isn’t meaning and also truth (in degrees) :wink: to be found in one thinking for one’s self, not necessarily mental copying and pasting of the work of others?
Oh, maybe I didn’t understand what you were saying at first. Perhaps you are thinking like me in that respect - meaning is not to be found ONLY in the words of the author? Is that it?

I also hold logic in high esteem, along with personal experience.

Yes, it is and sometimes it is not even a choice which we make, as to the last part. Meaning at times happens to us because who we are where we live (not geographically) but because of our minds and emotions we also choose what meaning is for us.

Ah, the light goes on.

If we are dealing with human beings, encode_ decode, we are also dealing with nature. That’s why it is called human nature. Even the nature which we observe around us is closely related to our own natures.

You mean perfect moments? Yes I can but as I said they are not lasting/eternal though one can recall them through memory. They are absolute in a sense because they are real but for a time only. I say that with both my reason and my emotions.

I’m glad to hear this since i have no idea what it means. My pay rate is somewhere in the dirt where your’s is in the celestial sphere. hahaha

Yes, I think that I can probably understand where you are coming from there.

Ouch!! But at least it was worth something to me. We all see meaning and beauty differently though.
Can we help ourselves? Sure, some can try to arrive at more reason and some can try to arrive at more of the human experience. We as INDIVIDUALS are always going to lean more on one side or the other.
But can we actually come to find truth, some truth, if there is too much reason or too much of the human experience alone? Wouldn’t a marriage of both be more conducive to truth?

Are you speaking to me here, encode_decode? I am actually quite happy to try to see things from another’s point of view. That may not change mine but maybe it will. We all see with different lenses and I think that we can see more if we can see another’s point of view, no? At least, to think about it. We cannot know everything. Even a guy like Copernicus made that silly mistake about the Sun but was it so silly considering what they did not know at that time.

If you are speaking to me, kindly point out to me where you think you SEEM to have done that to me. I can’t actually recall your having done that.

Don’t worry about the preaching. Sometimes that cannot be avoided. I still have not learned how to get out of preaching mode when I am posting at times. :laughing:
Maybe that comes from listening to too many homilies at Sunday Mass. I don’t know.
I still have to learn how to not do that.

Kind regards to you too,
arc

Arcturus Descending

You are welcome for the affirmations - they were meant as observations from what I can remember but affirmations are good enough for me - as I said, if any part of my post came across as an affirmation then I am pleased for that. You stated, “Your kind words to me were definitely an affirmation”, and I wondered whether my intention was to be kind or honest - I guess you would see the two as rather synonymous based on differing degrees of context. I made mention earlier that many of us make valuable exchanges of our thoughts on this forum, and you are no exception - I stand by that statement.

I also feel that you are courageous and tenacious.

Our exchange is unique, as is any exchange, between any two given people, at any given time; our exchange is based on the scope of conversation, the space that you occupy and the space that I occupy - I suggest that the two different spaces are a result of modern internet communication - the relativity of exchange, between “days of old” regarding time: people would do this sort of thing through “snail mail”, and the relativity of exchange, completing the between, at “days of new” regarding the completion of the time bubble: we now do this sort of thing in forums; the pace of response is variable, the relativity of exchange is different and the space has been split, further I will add, scope is in two parts(three), conversational, your scope and mine . . .

. . . and so, shall we proceed? Yes, with the ever changing degree of relative uniqueness :evilfun: and moreover with courage and tenacity.

This can be a complex topic in and of itself . . . I stand by my statement, so let us maintain the elegance of that statement. What brought this statement on is twofold, something you said(which would take away from my response) and something I said; I have witnessed you thinking with depth, curiosity and many times quite an impressive accordance to rationality. Your ‘response to logic’ which you say you hold in ‘high esteem’ was a detraction from your impressive accordance to rationality - however as I previously stated your skepticism seems to serve you well Arcturus Descending. Naturally a detraction such as I have mentioned is eventually going to make way into an interaction as sophisticated as the unique interaction we have been having, particularly when one of us is a skeptic.

I value your skepticism - so rather than fight it, I prefer to walk around it and come back to it later to make an approach of it as new. I have not directly perceived your nihilistic ways, I will keep an eye out for them now that you mention it. From what I have perceived, life does hold meaning to you. You stated: We all choose for ourselves how we ought to live, to which I agree. I do not expect that others will adhere to my mode of behavior, in fact I would discourage it. To enter into an interaction with myself will at times present a self-defeating puzzle that will not leave you frustrated as much as it would leave you yourself making adjustments. Communication ‘for me’ is not a very difficult thing, and in accordance to, as well as with due regard to, what you stated, I agree, is dependent on individual styles of language. Hopefully one’s noodle is not baked yet.

Oh . . . please make no imagining that I have given up on anything. What you are saying here makes perfect sense to me - there you go, perfect.

Who is the original author? I should have said the three original authors, one of which is you. The answers I provided were without the substance of the original authors - it is a great example of where meaning is not to be found(As for this part, you don’t necessarily agree with me) - meaning quite possibly is dependent on the essence of the individual - perhaps this is why we often misinterpret the authors of old. You are correct when you state meaning and also truth (in degrees) is to be found in one thinking for one’s self, not necessarily mental copying and pasting of the work of others - degrees which the brain is dependent on follow through to our mind and interactions as we already understand it. Perhaps I am thinking like you in that respect - meaning is not to be found ONLY in the words of the author. Is that it? Hmm, more than likely.

You mentioned that you also hold logic in high esteem, along with personal experience; it makes me happy that you are thinking like this.

Meaning at times happens to us because who we are where we live (not geographically) but . . .
. . . because of our minds and emotions we also choose what meaning is for us.

[size=85]Arcturus Descending(2017)[/size]

We should not treat logic as a god - perchance the light may stay on . . . We are dealing with human beings, however I personally am also dealing with nature.

Human nature is relatively different to nature however and that is why it is called human nature - the nature which we observe around us is closely related to our own natures. Tell me Arc, what is the difference between a perfect scene and a perfect moment in the context of our conversation? I am glad you say they are absolute in a sense because they are real but for a time only - that you say that with both your reason and your emotion. You should not underestimate yourself - not saying that you have inside our interaction - I am saying the pair of us should keep this in mind for many other interactions involving people and things.

We all see meaning and beauty differently though. Can we help ourselves? Sure, some can try to arrive at more reason and some can try to arrive at more of the human experience. We as INDIVIDUALS are always going to lean more on one side or the other.
[size=85]Arcturus Descending(2017)[/size]

But can we actually come to find truth, some truth, if there is too much reason or too much of the human experience alone? Hmm . . .
Wouldn’t a marriage of both be more conducive to truth? That would be one of the questions wouldn’t it?

Meaning will keep getting lost into the abyss. Perhaps the abyss deserves some meaning too. My apology to you was contingent upon the event perceived that it be the case that I was preaching to you - I am glad that is not how you viewed what I was saying, thank you for illuminating me.

I can do my best to avoid preaching. We are all still collectively yet to become wary of our own preaching . . .
. . . at times we “fall in love” with what we ourselves are communicating.

I appreciate your kind regards. =D> In turn I would like to offer some kind regards of my own . . .
To you, Arc . . .

Peace,

Aaron.

:smiley:

Encode, I am the farthest thing from a nihilist. Nihilist don’t believe in meaning, I believe meaning is in everything. But something you should know about me is that I sometimes like to suspend my usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t mine. Think of it as an attempt to scope out the other person’s thoughts: if they present to me philosophy X, I will sometimes counter with anti-X (even if I’m an adherent of X myself) just to see how they react, what their thoughts are. It helps to flesh out the details of their position.

I wholeheartedly agree, encode. Meaning is just consciousness, awareness. It is the process by which meaning is drawn from an experience and used to beget further meaning in a new experience. (<-- This, again, coming from my theory of consciousness).

As far as I’m concerned, subjective experience comes with all physical actions. If I throw a ball against a wall, I maintain that a subjective experience characterized by some quality is had by the ball/wall system. Only, I wouldn’t say the quality of this experience is anything remotely like what we’re familiar with in our own experience. It is incomprehensible for all intents and purposes. It is not the experience of vision, or hearing, or touch, or thought, or emotion, or anything we as humans are acquainted with. The latter experiences come along with a very specific kind of physical activity–namely, neurochemical events in the brain–certainly not a ball bouncing off a wall.

In general, I define consciousness, or more accurately “subjective experience” in terms of a trio:

  1. quality
  2. being
  3. meaning

I believe the fundamental substance of the universe, the “stuff” that reality is made of, to be the above three aspects rolled into one substance (and at the end of the day, my theory of consciousness is really a theory of substance). It’s aspect #3 (meaning) that, in my mind, makes the incomprehensible experience that the plant has meaningful, but like the man speaking in a foreign language, our brains are unable to imagine what it feels like, and thus have no direct access to the meaning therein.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll expand on this line of thought later if I come up with anything.

Well, I’m interested in knowing what the “animal” part of the human brain has to offer. I’m rather cynical when it comes to the influence that society or civilization has on the human psyche. I don’t think it’s healthy. At least, it’s unhealthy in the way it conditions us to behave in pre-programmed way, or to behave and speak in ways that seem more like an attempt to adhere to the status quo rather then drawing from our authentic feelings and intuitions and instincts. They say that mankind first appeared on the evolutionary scene about 200,000 years ago (this, they say, is “mindkind” in the modern form, more or less genetically identical to the way we are today). I don’t think man came onto the scene fully equipment with a whole resource of religious beliefs and superstitions and comprehensions of complex abstract concepts. I believe that when man first appeared on the scene, he wasn’t that much different than an advanced animal… except for this one defining feature: he had the ability to not only build thought on past experience, and even build thought on prior thoughts, but the ability to pass on those thoughts to others, sort of naturally “downloading” pre-packaged memes. And “memes” is pretty much what this boils down to. Mankind evolved on the scene equipped with the ability to produce and pass on memes, and for memes themselves to evolve in the hardware of the human brain as they not only get checked and compared with further experience on the part of the individual, but in the very process of being communicated to others. IOW, the human brain is unique among other animal brains in that it was the first platform (as far as we know) on which a different kind of evolution could begin, an evolution of thought, of ideas, as opposed to biological evolution. This allows for a much speedier process of evolution, one that can go from quite rudimentary thoughts on the level of mere animals (like “I’m hungry”) to a sophistication of thought on the level of multivariate calculus or quantum mechanics. As speedy as it is compared to biological evolution, however, it still takes time. They say that the advent of religion and ritual emerged about 40,000 years ago. But if we are the same animals we’ve always been since 200,000 years ago, what happened 40,000 years ago such that religion would spontaneously (from our limited point of view) emerge? The answer is: that’s how long it took for religion to evolve. Memes being passed on, being built on top of other memes, memes transforming and evolving, becoming more and more sophisticate, until we get religion.

My interest in this, my a pantheist point of view (to bring God into the discussion), is to understand what God originally intended to convey to us. If religion, and all other forms of abstract thought we have today, is the culmination of an evolutionary process of memes, a process that we build, that we are involved in driving, then it could be argued that we are distorting the original message conveyed to us by God, the original message conveyed to us by the universe via the senses and the hardwiring of the brain, which I proposed is hardwired to take raw sensory data and build “objects” out of (like most other animals, I believe).

Science, I’m convince, is a kind of reconciliation of this departure from the original messagee. It is mankind learning to speak the language of God, to interpet our experiences in their own terms. Science is a Q&A session with God. The experiment is a question: is my hypothesis right? And the results are God’s answer: yeay or nay.

In today’s science, we have learned much about the inner workings of nature. Though this is obviously far from the original message conveyed to us by God (God never told us the world is made of atoms and molecular, of light photons, of black holes and quasars billions of light years away), I believe science offers a special edge by which God’s response to experiments (when it’s a yeay) can be interpreted as: well, that’s not what I originally intended to convey, but it’s more or less equivalent. ← Like a person throwing a message back at you in his own words. You could respond “yes, that’s right,” even though it’s not the words you originally used.

Boy I’m chatty today, ain’t I? :laughing:

That may be, but I’ve been speaking too much about my own thoughts. You have yet to expound on your own. Where would one begin with encode’s thoughts if one were to grasp the big picture in encode’s head?

Hi gib

I am going to break my response up - I think it is easier to manage that way - I hope you have no objections.

I was pretty certain that you were not a nihilist. I really like your style that you suspend your usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t yours - I have similar tricks - even arguing against my self - this keeps the mind very agile in my opinion. When scoping out other peoples thoughts, especially for the first time - I believe having extra tools like some trick is a great way to uncover their reactions.

Well, your theory of consciousness is going to be something that I will be very interested in reading.

I assume you are referring to signals interpreted by the brain otherwise I am not following you precisely. I will attempt to offer my thoughts - let me make up a word - encephalosystem - because you are talking about a system - encephalosystem is the system inside the skull - the brain/mind system. The ball/wall system is a separate system to the encephalosystem. What we are familiar with when we experience translation of the outside world through the encephalosystem is different to what the ball/wall system “experiences”. We can not truly comprehend the ball/wall system is what I think you are saying.

OK . . . that is incredible and very interesting at the same time. I also believe the universe is one substance. This is a new way to think for me - thanks. I have been following James’ idea of affectance for the one substance. This to me involves emergence of the three things you have listed. I keep my mind open because like the style you have mentioned above I am still able to learn by analogy or interpretation.

:-k

gib

And here it is part two . . . nothing super special - your writing is interesting however.

I think the animal part you refer to is what I refer to as the reptilian part. With the current state of affairs it pays to be cynical - certainly sociological influence is corrupt - I am studying this regarding emotions at the moment. It is so easy to study emotion when you have a whole society of people acting the same.

Um, yeah, I would have to mostly agree.

Were the memes via language though? I know cave drawings played a part later on - sometimes I think there is still quite a lot of primitive man in a lot of the human race - not inciting racism, just saying. Building thoughts on prior thoughts is the most significant thing you mention here for me. When the baby watches man and continues to toddler and continues to watch man - all the way through the years to adult - the downloading is continuous of course - even without language. First signs of language could still be grunts and groans. Thoughts on prior thoughts I will leave alone because we are now talking about similar material in another thread.

These memes did not require language to begin with - it seems as those language now has intoxicated memes of the past - that modern man is currently a drunkard. Meaning has become adulterated and has become quite the promiscuous slave of each man.

True - I have heard that our collective evolution has slow because of this. I honestly believe there is an after this - an after philosophy and an after science - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon - only for a select few.

Are all of us the same animals though - or are a small few just trudging through the treacherous waters of humankind as it stands now.

I believe spirituality is a part of our future, just not the way we have ever viewed it before now.

:-k

gib

And now for the third and final part of my response - I am getting a little tired so I hope I am going to be still making some sense - it is 2:27 AM here.

Hmm, interesting notions - a little foreign to me but I will humor them since I am a “believer”. I am certain god did not intend this the way we live now - I ran an idea James had by a Christian friend of mine and my Christian friend asserted that James must be a very smart fellow. Cities I believe are a little too much if you are not indulging in communication with your neighbors but how can we when some of the neighbors are dickheads? Now I am a little off topic, I realize that but what has happened here is that your mention of God had inspired a thought and memory of something James once said to me about 75 people groups. Anyway - back to this.

Well I must say that I do like this that you have written . . .

I also think there is a lot of corruption in science and this corruption is on purpose - not so much conspiracy by a small group but a natural feedback that occurs when we as a race move too fast. There is just so much knowledge we do not need too - but it seems to be a law that to get something you have to pay more than it is worth - I am not talking about money now either.

Chatty is good.

Hmm . . . I am not sure now is the time - a few brain malfunctions might take place :laughing: I will read back over everything and produce something good.
After a good sleep.

Thank you for your extra thoughts and new thoughts - look forward to some new stuff of my own for your reading pleasure . . .

:smiley:

Yeah, though I don’t like to think of it as a “trick”–sounds too manipulative and dishonest–rather I think of it as an approach.

Precisely!

Oh God, you’ve been talking to James. #-o Just kidding. James and I have a friendly rivalry (he may call it a “bitter” rivalry). But yeah, we hold two contending theories of the ultimate substance of the universe–his is affectance and mine is experience–though they’re not necessarily incompatible. While I’m a subjectivist, James remains an objectivist. He has came up with a reductionist physicalist theory–much like string theory says that all is strings, one dimensional vibrating strands of energy, or much like quantum theory says that all are waves of probabilities–he says all is affectance. But like string theory, or quantum theory, or James’ affectance theory, I am still able to say: okay, well whatever turns out to be the truth in physics, it’s still a representation of experiences being had by the universe. Similar to what I said above about modern science reinterpreting the original message given to us by God, James’ theory may be yet another such reinterpretation. If it is scientifically testable at all, and if it passes such testing, that’s God giving James a ‘yeay’. The only point on which we would differ is that James’ would never say affectance is but a mere representation of something else (I don’t think), whereas I would. He really wants to say affectance is fundamental. I want to disagree. I want to say experience is fundamental, and if his theory is right, affectance is only a physical representation of foreign subjective experiences.

Sure, or even the mammal brain. It’s which ever parts of the brain are required to recognize that we are surrounded by “objects”.

Really? How so?

Mostly? :laughing:

Good question. Just as I don’t think mankind emerged on the scene fully equiped with religion, beliefs, superstitions, complex abstract concepts, etc. neither should I think mankind emerged with a fully developed language. However, while we might have to talk about the evolution of memes making its way to religion on the scale of several thousand years, we might be able to get away with talking about the evolution of language on the scale of one individual’s lifetime. A baby would certainly not be born with a full vocabulary and mastering over the grammar of a language, but we might suppose that the baby will slowly develop a language, gradually invent words, on the way to becoming an adult. Man might be equiped with the compulsion to invent language in response to being in social groups. Man may be inherently driven to communicate with his peers, and the result of this compulsion may be the development of a language, one that gets sufficiently fleshed out within one’s life time.

And if this is the case, I would suspect it would be a collaborative effort. The community would share in the development of language, learning to use the same terms and sounds to denote a thing or a concept every time they hear it from someone else.

That’s possible. We know that if a baby is born into a community that already has a fully developed language, the baby will naturally pick up on the language during the first few years of its life. But what if the baby were born into a community without language? Who would the baby learn words from? Would the baby feel compelled to invent his own words (I know babies will sometimes invent their own words; my daughter invented ‘dity’–it was her generic word for pointing at things and saying ‘look at this’!) And if so, would he invent them fast enough to have a fully developed language by the time he reached adulthood? And how much would this depend on the cooperation of the community–that is, for every word invented, the community coops that word and agrees (implicitely) to use it in their language.

Well, I will say that information tends to get distorted as it gets communicated and passed on. It’s like the game of telephone again. When we look to our past, we see how far removed religious and superstitious beliefs can become from concrete empirical experience. Take transubstantiation for example: Christianity would have us believe that the bread and wine served during the Eucharist literally become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Yet there is no reason that a man who is observing this sacrament for the first time (say a primitive man who we brought from the past) would say that the bread and wine literally became flesh and blood. Religion, which is the culmination of the passing on of memes, resulting in distortion, comes to furnish us with beliefs and convictions that are completely cut off from empirical experience–sort of throwing us into a delusional world, the intoxicating effect of which makes drunkards of us all.

Perhaps for the psychic and the clarivoyant? :laughing:

Another good question! When they tell us that mankind in his current genetic form emerged 200,000 years ago, this really has to be taken with a grain of salt. The fact is, evolution doesn’t take giant leaps and then plateau for a good long while (like 200,000 years); it’s a steady ongoing process–sometimes making giant leaps, other times changing gradually and slowly. At least, this is what I’m told. So over the course of the last 200,000 years, there has been change and diversification. The only reason they mark 200,000 years ago as the dawning of mankind is because we like to think of ourselves as one unified species–the same animal–and so we need a way of answering the question: when did we first evolve? I do believe a major branching of our ancestors’ species (some kind of primate) occurred 200,000 years ago–a giant leap in evolution–which gave rise to what we would call our “human” ancestors, so it’s as convenient a point as any other to label the “dawning” of mankind, but it would be an oversimplification to say that’s the last time in our history when our genes went through a significant change. Since then, in fact, we’ve gotten different races, different eye and hair colors, different mental disorders like ADD. Thomas Hartman writes that the ADD genes (which I have BTW) evolved around 40,000 years ago (imagine that, around the time of religion’s emergence), and what he calls the “farmer” gene (as opposed to the “hunter” gene–that is, ADD) evolved around 10,000 years ago, accounting for the aggricultural revolution and the advent of civilization. And yes, having ADD myself, I do feel like part of a small few trudging through the treacherous waters of the rest of mankind.

Well, if my theory of meme evolution is correct, a new world religion the likes of which we have never seen before is inevitable.

Damn, you’re dedicated! :laughing:

:laughing-rolling:

Just kidding… friendly rivalry.

You’re tired. :wink:

Do you mean science working too fast? Sacrificing quality for quantity? Is this the reason we hear so many science reports only to be refuted or exposed for their sloppy methods a few years later?

Will do.

gibinator

I really like your style that you suspend your usual convictions and beliefs and argue from a position that isn’t yours - I have similar tricks - even arguing against my self - this keeps the mind very agile in my opinion. When scoping out other peoples thoughts, especially for the first time - I believe having extra tools like some trick is a great way to uncover their reactions. To which you responded:

I understand . . . I was being a little relaxed in my language by using the word trick, I guess over here it can be used as a more innocent figure of speech. I will remember that for the future. Dishonesty can be a problem though for all of us I think - to varying degrees - before you say it - I do no approve of dishonesty either - just that I think when it comes to interactions with other people then we are all guilty of it.

An approach is a much better word - toolkit - like a set of spanners - a set of approaches - only I have not been able to itemize my own into categories.

I am glad I was able to understand you through my approach using the encephalosystem example - sometimes I have to make up words, especially when I am either tired or feeling a little rushed - in this case I was a little tired - still to understand another being is wonderful for me.

Yes, I have been talking to James for quite some time now. The one thing James and yourself have in common is that the pair of you were welcoming of me to this forum where a few others jumped straight on top of me. The peculiar thing about me however ever can be summed up in a few words:

  1. I am an incredibly peaceful guy.
  2. I am everyone’s friendly rival.
  3. What was three again.
    I will get back to you on three, it seems to have slipped my mind all of a sudden - I will say this however - when I am attacked, I turn into a brutal monster, so to speak. I have a tendency to make people think. Like I said I am everyone’s friendly rival - that is probably brought about by what it seems to me that no one can agree on everything. I will stand up when being dictated to - I have a lot of patience. Anyway this is not a thread about me but it does not hurt to illuminate oneself in public a little as far as I am concerned.

Affectance and Experience - that is awesome as far as I am concerned - I have worked out that many things are not as incompatible as some authors like to claim. I have no idea what category I fall into regarding either being a subjectivist or being an objectivist. I am not very good when it comes to having the ability to label myself - I do have a philosophy though - I call it Confinism - I guess you could say that I am a confinist, only I am not even sure what it truly means - I do believe in a concept of the absolute which sometimes I will refer to as totality - basically there is everything and inside everything there are local confinements that portions of everything, relative and affecting as in the butterfly affect. On a more human level I guess the closest thing I am to is an Utilitarian. Whether these are good or bad things, I do not know.

Quantum theory and String Theory annoy me - String theory being the less annoying for me. I use the reductionist approach all the time - to me it is a useful tool - I am also elemental in my approach - that comes back to confinism too - for me everything has its elements waiting to be discovered - in the case of affectance, I identify PtA as an element - whether be it divine or physical, I still attempt elements. You might find that I speak of some of your own philosophy in terms of confinement, as it is a propensity I have - or it could be a mental problem - it works for me though. I tend to think in terms of everything is valid in varying degrees.

While I am talking about myself so much I may as well add one last thing - I am also rather Bayesian - in that I believe a subjective degree of belief should necessarily change to fit the evidence. Even though Bayes has followers that are both objectivists and subjectivists. I am not a dualist despite what some people may think - if you pick up on that - the best thing to do is question me because my response is usually rather interesting - and no, please do not challenge me here and now over it.

:smiley:

G-1000

I am not here to judge anyone - that is probably clear by now - I attack those who attack me - the patience is great though . . .

. . . and the force is with me . . . :laughing: I am kidding.

I am able to say that everything is still a degree of truth no matter what turns out to be the truth in physics. All theories might be interpretations. I think that it is probable, that your theory, and James’ theory, are valuable to me given that I talk to the pair of you a lot. My intuition says so.

I see it is a catch 22 - I say everything is fundamental and is being chopped up into components that vary in degree of value depending on who is doing the chopping. The only real enemy we have is ourselves which is why we should proceed with caution when propagating the ego. I am not preaching here - just illuminating myself in public again - sorry about that. I have found many truths in what James says and many truths in what you say. Believe me, once you get past some of my crazier ideas of the mind there will be truths beyond what anyone else has achieved - because I am always the student - I place myself below all others - that is something many people I know have huge issues with. I have bots to prove what I am talking about when it comes to mind.

I am currently working on am emulator for James and I have already come across some issues in what I would call the science but I do have some solutions for those issues - take random for instance - not referring to AO here but random is a problem that everyone seems to have - random does not show itself in nature only in concept.

I am also very interested in your philosophy - very interested - which leads to the next question:

How is it that one can take notice of more than one philosophy? to which I have already explained some of it. We are supposed to live in a civilized world - like the stories we hear of the Greeks or how France was the height of civilization at once stage - LOL - when you think about it, it is kind of a joke because when has there ever been peace around human beings. Now - with me - there is peace. I do not judge - so - How is it that one can take notice of more than one philosophy? I am still trying to figure out how I do that - but I am interested in what I am interested in and apparently I have a pretty powerful brain from what I have been told - although most of the time I fail to see it - I have been told that I am congenial too - yet I personally feel people are intimidated by me. How can one be so congenial when one is everyone’s rival - yet people keep coming back.

What a paragraph that last one was - maniacal, insightful - negatives and positives all wrapped up in one - dualistic and self defeating. But no, you have a marvelous brain as does James and I would not expect the either of you to see eye to eye - I like how you call it a friendly rivalry and I would want James to think the same - I do know James is a caring person however. The pair of you are nearly like family to me by virtue of the amazing minds that you have. Does that place me on a pedestal too - I really do not care - modesty is the quality or state of being unassuming in the estimation of one’s abilities and the quality of being relatively moderate, limited, or small in amount, rate, or level taken from Google dictionary - man I need to find a new dictionary - lol - what I do know is it is easier enough for me to see the benefit in others and myself. ILP kicks ass - I really like it - I am sad to see some go and happy to see some join - some deny their egos and some love themselves (unhealthily). Oh, I have plenty to rant about when it comes to what constitutes a good debate and a better composition for philosophical communication.

Onward with the next post . . .

Peace.

:sunglasses:

Gib

Part 3 - Good communication is about putting differences aside - you seem to do that from what I can tell which is good. A good debate should be cold hearted and any display of anger should be theatrical - I have noticed a few around here do not do that. Then there are the preachers - you know - those preachers.

Sock puppets - WTF - well I will leave that particular feature of ILP alone for the time being.

Now down to business.

Mmm Hmm. I have learnt terms from psychology and neuroscience - hopefully my terms are understandable - there are also terms that will be introduced from philosophy of mind and artificial general intelligence and the all new machine intelligence. Recognition of surrounding objects still need to be parsed via an interpreter. More on that later.

Parsing is a multiple stage affair.

With the current state of affairs it pays to be cynical - certainly sociological influence is corrupt - I am studying this regarding emotions at the moment. It is so easy to study emotion when you have a whole society of people acting the same. To which you replied Really? How so? Yes really - in one theory I have read emotions themselves have a political agenda - a self-serving interest - then there is the sociological interests pertaining to political agendas - a social mood and social emotional state. Like the repeating television example I gave in the Mind Computing thread - emotions are recursive throughout human nature - they are elements of existence - I will explain more and you might like it.

Mankind certainly did not emerge with a fully developed language I illustrate that quite easily with the following:

[b]When being enters the wild with no language - universe provides for being patterns - the silent language is at work . . .

. . . answers can still come from from within by virtue of being’s submersion . . .[/b]
Is this true? If evolution is a fact, then of course it is true. A little thought also says that this is all you need to survive in the wild - no language.

A baby is born with no grammar - as you indicate - memes are close to the first things they learn along with the words Mummy and Daddy - the meaning of these words arrives later. Compulsion is a good word for what you are describing - I explored this in another thread - again we will no doubt cover that in the future too.

:-k

gib

Now we are up to part four. I hope the responses are not too long for you. somehow I doubt they are. :smiley: You said: The community would share in the development of language, learning to use the same terms and sounds to denote a thing or a concept every time they hear it from someone else. And if this is the case, I would suspect it would be a collaborative effort.

I suspect that initially the community would not have noticed that they were collaborating when language was being developed by them. You pretty much nailed it here. Collaboration we must remember also happens among micro-organisms even though they are not aware of it.

You are a smart little cookie aren’t you gib? A baby born into a community with no language might invent a few words - I do think it would take some momentum before a large vocabulary is built up. Possibly even a number of generations - what are your thoughts on this? Some say that our words have a relationship phonetically to each object. I think all babies are compelled to invent their own words - we should explore this further. Your daughter sounds cute - my youngest daughter used to scold me for messing too much and too often with words - it seems she developed a sense of humor early and also a sense of dad being silly. Dity - I am not certain we could precisely work out the mathematics of whether is is possible to invent a complete language from birth to adulthood - it would be an individual trait, no? It would certainly depend upon the cooperation of the community.

gib

Part 5 - These memes did not require language to begin with Probably not - it seems as those language now has intoxicated memes of the past - that modern man is currently a drunkard. Meaning has become adulterated and has become quite the promiscuous slave of each man. I wonder why you said Probably not, do you think there is a probability associated with what I was saying. I totally messed up the second part of what I was saying.

It seems as though, language now has, intoxicated memes of the past << I am not even certain if this is what i was trying to say at the time.

Most certainly - I can not imagine that I have disagreed with you on the first sentence. We do have quite a bit of concrete empirical evidence but I am surprised at the arrogance of man when he assumes that we have reached the top already. Interesting note on Christianity there . . . thanks gib.

Oh yes, I totally agree. I have noticed too, when reading the Bible, and comparing it to worship that there are two worlds - the one in the Bible and the one of worship - OK I know it is not rocket science but it is clear to me that there is also quite a bit of analogy going on in the Bible - the fact that it is now a book is perhaps a huge distortion.

Whether or not Christianity has helped us to evolve in a more positive light - Hmm - debatable. I guess we could have easily arrived here without it.

“True - I have heard that our collective evolution has slow because of this. I honestly believe there is an after this - an after philosophy and an after science - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon - only for a select few.” To which you responded:

Oh, I was being serious - I was also tired - so bad wording on my part. It should have read something like the following:

I have heard that our collective evolution has slowed because we are at the top of the food chain. I honestly believe there is an after this(meaning the way that things are now) - an after philosophy and an after science(what reason do we have to believe otherwise?) - super-powerful knowledge on the horizon(Google already seems to think so) - only for a select few(I honestly believe this).

I can say that there are some people in the world who are becoming obsolete - I know it sounds horrible - but I am certain of it - I want to face up to the truth of existence and the truth is telling me that the human landscape is going to change rather drastically. This is not the easiest thing for me to explain however because I have not put a lot of time into it - I have spent my time in a more pragmatic world - kind of like the old saying but not entirely - if you can not beat them then join them - my battle of my enemy is a battle I have to face on the same turf - my enemy is smart and not ignorant - that is what I mean by join them - to join them I should be able to beat them. Either way I need to understand my adversary - I cannot see how not we be good.

This, as it turns out is quite and interesting conversation . . .

:-k

What do you think about this:

It took a while, but hidden variable theory was eventually disproved by John Bell, who showed that there are lots of experiments that cannot have unmeasured results. Thus the results cannot be determined ahead of time, so there are no hidden variables, and the results are truly random. That is, if it is physically and mathematically impossible to predict the results, then the results are truly, fundamentally random. askamathematician.com/2009/1 … andomness/